Ch. 3: The Other Lion

At the top of the path, Numskull was not having a good afternoon.

He had woken at his usual hour, combed his mane against the sal tree, and lain down at the mouth of his den in the pleasant expectation of dinner. Noon had come. He had heard the parakeets settle into the heat of the day, and the cicadas begin to shrill. No dinner had appeared.

At first he had told himself that the animals were merely slow. Then he had told himself that they were choosing someone especially plump, as a mark of respect. Then he had stopped telling himself anything at all and had simply lain there with his stomach making noises like distant thunder, his tail lashing the dust, and a feeling in his throat as if someone had tied a cord around it and was pulling it slowly tight.

“Aha,” he growled, licking his chops. “So that is how it is. They think the king has grown soft. Very well. First thing tomorrow morning I shall go down and eat every animal in the forest. Every one. I shall begin with the elephant and end with the ants.”

It was at this exact moment that a small brown rabbit, with one ear up and one ear flopping, came hopping very slowly around the last rock on the path, bowed low, and stood before him.

Numskull stared at him.

He stared at the rabbit's size, which was small. He looked up at the sun, which was low. He looked back at the rabbit. And his soul flamed up with such wrath that his mane stood out all round his head like the rays of a furious sun.

“You!” he roared, and the parakeets left the treetops in a single green explosion. “You reprobate! You wretch! First, you are too small for a meal; you would not fill one of my back teeth. Second, you are late. Hours late! Because of this double wickedness I am going to eat you now, and tomorrow morning I shall wipe out every kind of animal in this forest, root and branch, and leave nothing but the birds, and I shall think about the birds.”

Shashaka's knees were shaking so hard that he was afraid the lion would hear them knock together. But he bowed again, very low, until his whiskers brushed the dust, and he spoke with the utmost deference.

“Master,” he said, “the wickedness is not mine. Nor is it the fault of the other animals. Pray hear the cause of it, and then do with me whatever you think just.”

“Tell it quickly, then,” said Numskull, “before you are between my fangs.”

The rabbit took a breath. This was the moment. Everything depended on the next few sentences, and he had rehearsed them on the path to the ants, and to the sorrel, and to a puzzled lizard on a rock, until he could say them without a stumble.

“Master,” he said, “this morning all the animals agreed that it was the rabbits' turn. And because I am, as you so rightly observe, quite small, they did not send me alone. They sent me with five other rabbits, so that together we might make a meal worthy of your greatness.”

Numskull's ears pricked forward a little. Six rabbits was a different matter.

“But halfway up the path,” the rabbit went on, lowering his voice and glancing over his shoulder, “out of a great hole in the ground, there came another lion.”

“Another lion?” said Numskull.

“Another lion, master. Very large. He stood in our way and said, ‘Where are you going, little ones? Say a prayer to your favourite god.’ And I said, ‘Sir, we are travelling as the dinner of lion Numskull, our master, according to the agreement.’”

“Quite right,” said Numskull. “And what did he say to that?”

The rabbit hesitated, as if the words were too dreadful to repeat.

“Go on!”

“He said, master, forgive me, ‘Is that so? This forest belongs to me. All the animals in it, without exception, must deal with me, according to agreement. This Numskull is nothing but a sneak thief. Go and call him out and bring him here at once. Then whichever of us proves the stronger shall be king, and shall eat all these animals.’ And he kept the other five rabbits as a pledge, master, and sent me alone to fetch you. That is the cause of my lateness. For the rest, my master is the sole judge.”

There was a terrible silence on the hilltop. Even the cicadas stopped.

Then Numskull rose to his feet. He seemed to grow as he rose, until he blotted out half the sky. His tail lashed so hard that it raised a small storm of dust, and when he spoke it was in a low, rumbling voice that was far more frightening than his roar.

“A sneak thief,” he said. “He called me a sneak thief. In my own forest. And he has eaten my dinner.” He looked down at the rabbit with eyes like two hot coals. “Well, my good fellow, show me this lion, and be quick about it. I shall not have a moment's peace until I have taken out on him all the anger I was saving for the rest of you.”

“Quite so, master,” said the rabbit, and inside himself a small voice said, the rope is through the nose.

But he was cleverer than to tug on it too soon.

“Only, master,” he said, “I must warn you. He did not come out to meet us in the open. He came out of a fortress, a kind of round stronghold in the earth, with walls of stone. And the wise say that an enemy in a fortress is very hard to handle. A single archer on a wall can hold off a hundred men. Perhaps it would be better to wait, and gather your strength, and…”

“Wait?” said Numskull. “Wait? Have I not waited all day already? Fortress or no fortress, I shall have him out of it. The strongest creature who fails to crush a foe at the beginning will be destroyed by that foe later on. Everyone knows that.”

“Very true, master,” said the rabbit. “But it was a mighty lion that I saw. Almost as mighty as yourself. The master should not set out without knowing the strength of his enemy.”

This, of course, was exactly the wrong thing to say to a lion like Numskull, which was exactly why the rabbit said it.

“Almost as mighty as myself?” said Numskull, very quietly. “There is no such lion. There never has been. Show him to me, rabbit. Show him to me now, and you shall see what becomes of creatures who are almost as mighty as myself.”

“As my master commands,” said Shashaka, and he turned, and began to lead the way down the hill.